Guide to the Lauren Geringer Papers

Collection Overview

Date Span:

1919-1992

Creator:

Geringer, Lauren (1908-1992)

Extent:

1.00 linear feet.

Collection Number:

MSC0847

Repository:

University of Iowa Special Collections

Summary:

Iowa City printer and author. The bulk of the collection is comprised of monthly bundles from amateur press associations during 1990 and 1991, including the Amalgamated Printers Association, the National Amateur Press Association, and Peat's press. Items from Geringer's Press, clippings about Geringer, a miscellaneous collection of samples of printing, and several editions of his small journal, People Watcher make up the remainderof the collection.

Access: This collection is open for research.

Use:
Copyright restrictions may apply; please consult Special Collections staff for further information.

Acquisition:
These papers were given to the University of Iowa Libraries by Lauren Geringer in the early 1990s.

Lauren Geringer was born in Mount Ayr, Iowa in 1908. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Montana to homestead. Lauren grew up there and wanted to become a cowboy, but was bitten by the writing bug. At the age of sixteen, he was writing for a farm magazine, the Dakota Farmer. He continued to write his column, but when attempts to syndicate it failed, he stopped writing it. He wrote for weeklies and Sunday School papers. He wrote westerns and romances for the pulps under the name of Lars Raymer, but this did not support him. In 1932, his father bought him a hand press from an itinerant evangelist and he began learning the printing trade. He returned to Iowa and stayed with relatives while working various jobs. In 1943, he got a job as printer at the Iowa City Press Citizen, where he worked for the next thirty years, before retiring as compositor in 1972.

Geringer has written and self-published several books, among them Shortcut Shorthand in 1980 and Cowboy in the Wheat, his memoir of growing up in Montana, in 1985. He continued to write and try to publish romance novels and westerns until he died but he was unsuccessful in this.

After his retirement he became very active in amateur printing and press work. He belonged to several organizations, and was president of the American Amateur Press Association in 1978 and of the National Amateur Press Association in 1988. From 1973 to 1987 he won an award nearly every year from the American Amateur Press Association, most usually the Journal of Overall Excellence for his small People Watcher amateur journal, which he handset and printed one page at a time in his basement. He won the Russell L. Paxton Award in Amateur Journalism from the Historians of Amateur Journalism in 1988. He printed books written by other people, such as Have Hearts Been Broken? by Jim Elshoff and How to Write and Publish a Book, which he co-wrote with Lenore Harris Hughes in 1977.

Lauren Geringer died in January 1992.

The bulk of this collection is comprised of monthly bundles from 1990 and 1991 from the National Amateur Press Association, The Amalgamated Printers' Association, and Peat's Press. For each month, some of the presses have been named, but in the interest of brevity, not all of them have been named and individuals who submitted work for the bundles have not been named. Included in the collection are items from Geringer's Press, the Pine Street Press, clippings about Geringer, a miscellaneous collection of samples of printing, and several editions of his small journal, People Watcher.

Including newsletters or small journals. Newsletter from the Dr. Story Defense Committee, The Bradbury Press, Letterpress, Campane, Proofs & Pulls, Vapa Trails, Galley Proof, Original Entry, Reflections and Refractions, The Offshoot, The Boxwooder, The Kitchen Stove, Just Our Type, The Visiting Sexton, The Flexible Voice, ORRiginal Thoughts, Mail Call. November - 1990

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as ORRiginal Thoughts, The Flexible Voice, Alpha& Omega, The Gabriel Broadside, The Offshoot, It’s A Small World, Letterpress, Campane, The Boxwooder, Bay’s Tid Bits, Ray’s Ravings, Pecks’ Patter, Pacifica Poetry, The Big Bodkin. January - 1991

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as Proofs & Pulls, ORRiginal Thoughts, The Review, The Penny Magazine, Reflections and Refractions, Original Entry, The Flexible Voice, APC News, Maple Leaf, The Mini-DIGEST, Just Our Type, The Boxwooder, The Lost Chord. February - 1991

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as La Prensa Antigua, Campane, NAPA San Diego, NAPA East, Just Our Type, The Lost Chord, The Boxwooder, Alpha & Omega, The Review, Commentary. March - 1991

Box 2:

National Amateur Press Association Monthly Bundles

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as The Boxwooder, Siamese Standpipe, Campane, The Review, Reflections & Refractions, Ohio Views, The Journal of a Garret Grouch, Proofs & Pulls, Original Entry, The Lost Chord, The Flexible Voice, Just Our Type, Galley Proof. april - 1991

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as Alpha & Omega, National Calamity, The Reviewer, Shambler, NAPA San Diego, The Bradbury Press, The Boxwooder, A Printer's Progress, On the Spot With Keith Larson, The Kitchen Stove, The Flexible Voice, Original Entry, Just Our Type. June - 1991

Peat's Press Monthly Bundles

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as Peat's Press, Tid Bits, Peck's Patter, The Foolproof Press, It's a Small World, J. Ed's Alamanette, The Gravity Independent, The Lead Stacker. January - 1991

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as House of Type, Parkside Free Press, The Press of the Licorice Cat, The Twombly Press, Morningbird Press, Weaker Moments, The Shady Acres Private Press, Sumac Press, Small Doses, Ardentia Veritas Press, The Walnut Hill Press. May - 1991

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as The Leadstacker, Wayside Press, Dry Run, J. Ed's Almanack, The Midnight Press, The Battersean, The Press of the Licorice Cat, Morningbird Press, The Scott Free Press and Papermill, The Ethnic Press, Letterpress, A Printer's Progress. June - 1991

Including, but not limited to, newsletters or small journals such as Framingham Gazette, The Foolproof Press, The Battersean, Cedar Mountain Sleeper, Weaker Moments, Caliche Hills Press. July - 1991

National Amateur. Vol. 113:No. 4. June - 1991

Box 3:

People Watcher. Geringer's small journal

Print samples

Pine Street Print (Geringer's press)

Miscellaneous interesting items from a printing standpoint. See also Box 4